Rhodes Voicing Question

[David68]

I've voiced and tuned quite a few Rhodes over the years, and I'm currently doing a 1977 Suitcase Piano. I generally try to adjust the tine angle to get a more bell-like tone with softer playing transitioning to more bark to harder playing.

This Rhodes, however, just doesn't seem to produce bell-like tones, regardless of how the tines are set relative to the pickups. What would be the likely cause? Hammers? Strike line?

[Jenzz]

Hi .-)

Is it a 73 or 88?

Are you checking directly from the harp or incl. preamp / cabinet?



Jenzz

[David68]

I'm listening through the preamp and cabinet, but it's all previously been serviced by me.

And it's a 73.

[Jenzz]

Hi:

Is it a 100W or a 80W Peterson model? Note that the Peterson preamp has a 5kHz lowpass filter in the signal path, so you won't get that much 'sparkle' anyway...

Do you have a sample of the actual sound?

Jenzz

[steste]

I have a MK1 stage 1977 (white felt under the hammers) and i worked a lot to obtain the mellow sound.
Up to now i reached a beautiful complex kind of different sound on bass range (bark if strong mellow if soft), mellow bell like in medium and "neutral" on high notes.
To obtain this i experienced
1 - Better use headphones directly connected to an acoustic class A preamp if you have. Headphones are really important because you need to understand the real acoustic sound of each tine without the color of the cabinet/speaker/amp/tone/eq/room.
- work on each a single tine until you are satisfied, move the tine up or down from the pickup with the screwdriver if there is no chance to obtain the sound you like move the pickup nearest possible and try again with the pickup if also this fail you better disassemble the tine from the resonance bar clean everithing revitalize the grommet (with your fingers) and try again searching for the sound if not working disassemble again and install the tine pointing on right or left, not aligned, try this and make the possible. I have several tines (about sex to ten) that are not perfectly aligned with the resonance bar and the hammer is working well and the sound is beautiful and the sustain also.
- If there is no chance you can try to sobstitute a tine with a nearest one.
- If there is no chance again build yourself a new tuning spring with a different size wire, this cause the mass of the spring to stay in a different position and to have a different vibration diagram from the same tine.
Do per all the keys evaluating also the sustain of the upper notes adding mass or removing mass to the bars if needed.
- now adjust the volume without the headphones moving the pickup, this cause some note to sound different so you need to re start again for the notes involved.

Some days of joyful hand adjustment and you will finally have the best sound that you can obtain without spending lot of money to buy things. You need also to re-tune the instrument because the magnetic field of the near pickup can affect the vibration period (frequency) of the tines.

People here are involved in business so they tend to make you spend money to buy everything (grommets, screw, spacers, hammer tips and so on), i changed one note for reference and test (the central C) with new grommets screw and a new single hammer tip and i tell you, yes is more stable yes there is no changing in sound yes the sound is nice yes everything but is ok also without spend a cent.

Any instrument have his voice this is my opinion, for me the goal is to try to obtain the best from my ancient instrument without renew everythig.

Another thing that i learned is that the agressive bark sound (apart electronics) is coming from the "fender" rhodes, from the felt hammer tip instruments.

Another last, old hammer tips (if not over used and grooved) are less soft and more "bell like" sounding. Bell sound is related to some overtones from all overtones that you can "select" moving the pickup-tine relation, more overtones qty more kind of sound customization you have. Chick Corea was playng a piano without hammer tips to have the plastic hammering the tine without the rubber tip.

Disclaimer: these are only modest non professional personal experiences maybe all is wrong sorry for professional experienced that know everything people.

[David68]

Just to bring a conclusion to this thread, I think my problem was that I was listening too much to the action/hammer noise while trying to voice instead of listening to the audio output from the amp itself. It is a 100W model. My own is an older 80W Suitcase. I was also voicing it in a very "live" room that tended to accentuate the upper harmonics as well as the action/hammer noise, and I was probably too tired to be doing the job.

When I put the plastic cover back over the harp, it was much better.